Comments on: iPhone Developer Too Cheap to Buy Icons [UPDATED]

By: Michael C

Michael C — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:08:37 +0000

Actually I would like to confirm if you can use iStockPhoto material even with an extended license. This page indicates the material may not be used for logos (“License restrictions”)

http://www.istockphoto.com/license_comparison.php

By: iPhone Application Developer

iPhone Application Developer — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 01:05:17 +0000

What happens when you run a company and one of your employees steals your design work, and uses it to create his own app? Sam iPhone Application Developer

By: DrillerKiller

DrillerKiller — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:21:24 +0000

Copyright Infringement is not theft. It’s piracy. http://bitsandpieces.us/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/imagespiracy-20not-20theft.jpg

By: Josh Pigford

Josh Pigford — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:45:47 +0000

@Raven: Olly’s last sentence was said with tongue firmly planted in cheek. The internets needs some sort of sarcasm indicator. :)

By: Raven

Raven — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:56:27 +0000

I was shocked enough that the dev thought that he could do it in the first place – but that comment from him made him seem much worse.
The fact that he’s upset that he was exposed as a thief is ludicrous. (Yes, theft. Those images are watermarked to prevent people like that dev from doing exactly what he did and stealing their images.) It doesn’t matter that it was expensive; if he thought it was good enough to use, he ought to have thought it was good enough to pay for from the moment he first started to use it.

That said, Olly, your last sentence was entirely overkill and inappropriate. He’s wrong, but so are you.

By: Tim Windsor

Tim Windsor — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:42:47 +0000

Amazing. What’s that saying about “Give ‘em enough rope…”?

Sorry, Bernal, but you don’t get to use a stock image until you have enough money sitting around to pay for it (or decide you’d better pay now that the pesky American blog has noticed). That’s why it’s called a license fee. Whether you paid for the image “this morning” is of no relevance to the infringement. You were using the image without paying for it. Under any definition of copyright, that translates thus: stealing.

By: oWorld

oWorld — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:34:51 +0000

This is the uncensored version of my answer to the article wrote by Olly Farshi.

————

Hello,

As a good journalist, I would have appreciated that you give me the time to answer to your email before publishing your article.
I’m a french developer, so we’re in different time zone. I received your email at 11pm and was sleeping back then.

It’s now about 10am, I just read your email and your article.

For information, I bought the right to use the pictures this morning. You were right, at the beginning I first started with nothing and can’t afford to pay for the pictures, it’s perfectly normal to pay if I intend to continue to use it.

The pictures will be updated with the next updates of the application (In January). Your article start with a good intention but turn wrong very fast. I’m not a sick bastard ready to steal from children … To develop an application is not as easy as you seem, nor even as profitable as you seem to tell it. For information, the pictures cost 127 EUROS ($180) and not $109.

“Apple charges a one-off fee to developers of $99.”

Wrong, apple charges 20% on the price of each sell and $99 which is the subscription price.

I don’t want my name to be used in your article and ask you to remove it immediately. You can use “OWORLD” which is the name of my company.

It seems right to publish my answer in your post and to modify your article.

————–

You can already see that the icon of Week Number, TV Show and Movies was replaced on the appStore. The other icons are on there way.

By: Ontwikkelaar van Movies heeft geen geld over voor iStockphoto > Nieuws > iPhoneclub.nl

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:20:48 +0000

[...] The Apple Blog vroeg ontwikkelaar Olivier Bernal om opheldering, maar heeft nog niets gehoord. Vorige nieuwsitem [...]

By: Christophe

Christophe — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:02:27 +0000

$100 is obviously not a big deal, even for an independant developer planning to distribute paid apps. But this case won’t show the best of us french developers…

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:51:56 +0000

Nice work exposing this. Theft of intellectual property is obviously a very big problem online. Especially for us photographers as it is difficult to show your work without enabling full use, and in the end you just have to trust that people act with integrity. That a software maker can’t understand the value in respecting the intellectual property rights of others is baffling though.

For Devon B: I would urge you to contact the user of your photo and let them know that they are infringing your rights (and you are not happy about it), and if you are willing, suggest that this can be settled. Stealing the work of others is not ok (whether it is subsequently given away for free or not).

By: boba

boba — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:11:48 +0000

devon, $100 is actually quite low for what you’re offering him. i suggest that you try find someone with access to fotoquote (http://www.cradocfotosoftware.com/) to give you an appropriate cost for the type of license you’re offering.

this sort of thing happens quite alot in my field (concert photography) and it never ceases to disgust me. good luck to you!

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 04:24:23 +0000

The iStockphoto license is only 15 credits – not 115. So that image would have cost the developer less than $15.

By: rickw

rickw — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:33:22 +0000

This is just pathetic. Why do these developers, who are probably new to Mac programming, suddenly think that they can STEAL images and that nobody would notice? It’s the sheer size of the iPhone audience that has them busted. How ridiculous and stupid to steal like that. And to think, they couldn’t even take the time to remove the watermark from the image? Talk about Gold Rush.

By: HerbertKornfeld

HerbertKornfeld — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:22:39 +0000

When Loan Lite was first introduced into the App Store, it had a Pixelmator watermarked image for its screenshot. It’s since been fixed, but I thought it was funny enough to capture. Nothing infringing here, but still amusing. You can see it at http://bit.ly/15ZDq.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:03:49 +0000

looks like he’s changed the icon on the site (unless it was always different) after the backlash, but still hasn’t changed the “Week Number of the Year” app

By: Dallas

Dallas — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:07:01 +0000

He wouldn’t even need to buy the extended license. If you read their site it says the extended electronic resale license if you are going to resell the image as part of say a template for e-cards or website templates, etc. If he is taking the image and then using it to build an icon he would only need to purchase the image which he could get for like $14. This is just pathetic. If he can’t/won’t pay for the image how can he expect people to pay for his app? Not to mention if he is willing to let that go out with the watermark then you can only guess how crappy the app will be.

By: Devon B.

Devon B. — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:39:57 +0000

So then it would be fair of me to ask the Trail Guru developer for $100 USD for a one-time non-exclusive license agreement for the usage of my photo to represent his software?

By: Inside Stretch » iPhone Developer Stealing Icons

Inside Stretch » iPhone Developer Stealing Icons — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:35:02 +0000

[...] But if your name is Olivier Bernal, then you don’t have the secondary costs. Instead, you hijack stock images as your [...]

By: iconman

iconman — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:47:27 +0000

one can buy icons for less than 99 usd. some of the icon designers are happy if someone asks them to design some artwork. on the other hand it might be an ‘advertising deal’. right now trillions of mac and iphone users read this post and now know for sure that istockphoto really exists…

By: Ep

Ep — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:34:14 +0000

This dood just got got on the internet.